When I first set up this business a decade ago, I used to get a number of comments about being “part time”.
Or “not working many hours”.
Or “not working very hard”.
I haven’t heard it so much in the last several years, but I’m sure some people still say it.
I’ll fully admit I set the business up, in part, to have flexibility in when I work.
To fit around my wife’s very demanding job, three kids (then, four now) and all my other commitments.
I have wondered over the years if people would make the same comments if it was a woman setting up a business to, in part, have the flexibility around her four kids and husband’s work.
But that’s by the by.
It’s not actually true.
Never had been.
I work, and always have, fairly normal hours.
They’re just not conventional ones.
Up at 4am some days (it’s 5:18am as I’m typing this).
Finishing at 11pm others.
Usually broken up into multiple blocks throughout the day rather than 8 hours straight.
More hours earlier in the week and less later.
Outside of the Sessions I take, little of my work is massively time dependant.
As long as it gets done, it’s cool.
It’s the ticking of the boxes of what needs to be done, not the hours that are worked, that are relevant for me.
And, really, for everyone.
But it’s a mistake we sometimes make in other areas of our lives.
We mistake “spending time and effort on something” and “hard work” with actually getting the relevant things done.
We create all these complicated rules around “eating healthily”.
A very specific version of what it looks like.
We put a lot of effort into that.
Because we want, amongst other things, to lose weight.
But don’t “tick the box” of creating a calorie deficit.
So don’t lose weight.
And get discouraged and dispirited.
Or we just don’t do it because it feels impossible at the moment.
But we could’ve just made some slightly different, equally easy choices that put us in calorie deficit or maintenance.
We create a specific definition of exercise – where it has to be done, for how long, what form it takes, etc……..
Then don’t do any when we feel we can’t do that.
Forgetting that “some” exercise would still take us in the right direction (and make it more likely that we’ll do more next week).
And that, if we’re looking to improve fitness, then ticking the box of challenging our current fitness levels is more beneficial than spending ages doing something lower intensity that doesn’t.
Never forget – it’s doing what needs to be done that is important, not how much time it takes!
Finding a way to get something done properly in as little as time as possible is a bigger win than spending ages not getting it done.
Much love,
Jon ‘Waits for no man’ Hall
P.S. The most important box you could tick today is the one that says you’ve taken the first step into what many call “life changing”. Here –> www.myrise.co.uk/apply
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
